A Lack of Boredom
by theonceandfuturedollophead
Summary: When your flatmate is a self-proclaimed sociopath who also happens to be the world's only consulting detective and the man you are hopelessly falling for, there's no time for boredom...


John was living with a madman; of this he was absolutely certain.

How else would he explain the science equipment strewn across the kitchen table, where most people eat food, not dissect human feet. Or the eyeballs he'd found one morning inside of his coffee pot, little round balls with multicolored pupils staring up at him, making him drop the coffee beans in surprise. Or the unknown something wrapped in tissue paper and enclosed in a large Ziploc bag lying on his desk that was starting to smell strongly of formaldehyde. Not to mention the constant clanging, like that of two steel pots being repeatedly smashed together, that had kept him up half the night the week before, or the sudden deafening crash he'd heard from the kitchen the previous morning, both explained away by his flatmate with a dismissive wave of his hand, a hasty and not very heartfelt apology, and an assurance that it would be cleaned up. John wasn't sure whether or not he should ask what 'it' was.

Now John was a good man. He'd studied hard and become a doctor. He'd done his time in the military and saved countless people from the brink of death - even had the battle scars to prove it. So he couldn't figure out why he'd gotten stuck with Sherlock Holmes as his flatmate.

Well, actually, he knew why: the detective may be a demanding, childish, irresponsible sociopath, but he was absolutely brilliant. There was no denying that. The tall, pale, unconventionally handsome man had captured John's attention from the first three words out of his mouth, and John knew there was no way he would be able to leave the detective alone after their first meeting.

He was an enigma.

And as long as John was admitting his innermost thoughts about the world's only consulting detective, he might as well add that he was captivated by more than just the man's intelligence the moment they'd met; he'd felt undeniably attracted to him as well.

John did his best to ignore his feelings, though, because as far as he knew, he was absolutely, positively, one hundred percent straight and he planned to keep it that way.

At times it was easy to forget his attraction; he did, after all, as previously mentioned, live with a madman whose hobbies included dissection, experimentation, and murder cases.

At other times, however, his feelings (which, he was beginning to find, were synonymous with the term 'love') for the man came back tenfold, making it impossible to deny them. It was times like these that Sherlock showed his sweet side, or rather, showed that he was actually capable of emotions, disproving the beliefs of every single person on the police squad who Sherlock had come into contact with. It was times like these when John found it hard to hold himself back from tackling the man and kissing the hell out of him, stroking his smooth, perfectly defined cheekbones as he did so.

Like last week, when John had fallen asleep on the sofa in the middle of the afternoon (the night before was the one during which Sherlock had kept him up with the loud noises) and had woken hours later to find himself lying in his own bed, covered with a soft, warm blanket and feeling extremely comfortable. He'd smiled as he sat up, surprised and pleased with Sherlock's astonishingly kind and selfless act.

And then, of course, the sleuth had to go and ruin it by accidentally setting the stove on fire and having it explode into a thousand smithereens moments later, leaving nothing in its place but a large black crater and the smell of burning metal. At least the fire alarm hadn't gone off since John had figured out after the first two times Sherlock's experiments had ended in flames that he didnt want to be woken up at two in the morning by a deafening ringing sound and a sudden spray of cold water and had disassembled the damned thing. The kitchen was still horribly disfigured, though, and there was nothing John could do about that.

And so ensued the shouting, or rather, the angry scolding on John's part and the rolling of eyes and the somehow contradictory apology on Sherlock's, after which John found himself kneeling amidst the rubble on the kitchen floor with a dustpan in hand while his flatmate swept gracefully through the kitchen door and into the living room, probably to record the results of whatever experiment he'd been attempting to accomplish with the stove.

John sighed and got to work, sweeping up the burnt fragments of metal and depositing them into the garbage can. That stupid, ignorant, brilliant, useless_arse_... Sherlock would see; John wouldn't be so lenient next time. No, next time it would be Sherlock on the floor cleaning up his own mess while John sat on the sofa and enjoyed a warm cup of tea. He would see...

And then Sherlock burst through the door, because apparently Detective Inspector Lestrade had just informed him of a new case in which three completely unrelated victims had been beaten and then hung, and Sherlock was going to leave right now, and so John hurriedly stood up and rushed to grab his coat before throwing it on and following Sherlock down the stairs of 221b Baker Street, trying to keep up with the detective's long legs and fast pace. John's heart was beating rapidly and he felt a surge of growing excitement as Sherlock reached back and grabbed John's arm, rushing him along and sending shivers up his arm.

He lived for these moments; these adrenaline rushes and unexpected, unsolved mysteries with the most brilliant man the world had ever known. These times when his attraction and his annoyance and his amazement and his frustration all blurred into one, and all he had to do was follow Sherlock Holmes and that's all he would ever need.

So it was true that John was living with a madman - a demanding, childish, irresponsible sociopath - but he had to admit, life with him was never boring.


End file.
